The Commission establishes sentencing policies and practices for the federal courts. Each year, the Commission reviews and refines these policies in light of congressional action, decisions from courts of appeals, sentencing-related research, and input from the criminal justice community.

In this section, you can follow the Commission’s work through the amendment cycle as priorities are set, research is performed, testimony is heard, and amendments are adopted.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission is an independent agency in the judicial branch that was created as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Commissioners are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Attorney General, or the Attorney General’s designee, and the Chair of the U.S. Parole Commission serve as ex officio, nonvoting members of the Commission.

In this section, learn about the Commission’s mission, structure, and ongoing work.

Intra-City Differences in Federal Sentencing Practices

Overview

(Published January 8, 2019) This report examines variations in sentencing practices—and corresponding variations in sentencing outcomes—in the federal courts since the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in United States v. Booker. The United States Sentencing Commission analyzed the sentencing practices of federal district judges in 30 major cities located throughout the country to determine the extent of the judges’ variations in imposing sentences in relation to the city average.

This report is the second in a series of reports updating the analyses and findings of the Commission’s 2012 Report on the Continuing Impact of United States v. Booker on Federal Sentencing.

Conclusions

Although the trend of increasing differences among judges slowed after 2011, the increasing differences in sentencing practices first reported at the district level in the Commission’s 2012 BookerReport generally persist to this day, even within the same courthouse. In particular, the Commission finds that:

From the Booker to Gall Periods, 23 of the 30 cities had increases in their total spreads, and 22 of 27 cities (those with at least five judges in all three periods) had increases in their standard deviations. From the Gall to the Post-Report Periods, 20 of the 30 cities had increases in their total spreads, and 16 of the 27 cities (those with at least five judges in all periods) had increases in their standard deviations, although the magnitude of the increases was less than the magnitude of the increases from the Booker Period to the Gall Period.

In terms of the overall changes during the 13 years, from the Booker Period to the Post-Report Period, 25 of the 30 cities saw a net increase in their total spreads and 23 cities of the 27 with reported standard deviations saw a net increase in their standard deviations.

Considering all 30 cities together as a representative sample of the country as a whole, the average total spreads for all 30 cities in the three periods increased from 18.2 in the Booker Period to 23.7 in the Gall Period to 27.6 in the Post-Report Period. The average standard deviations for the 27 cities (those with at least five judges) grew from 5.8 to 7.7 to 8.3 during the same three periods.

In most cities, the length of a defendant’s sentence increasingly depends on which judge in the courthouse is assigned to his or her case.